What One Can and Cannot Promise
by Uozumi
Summary: Crowley always keeps his promises in his own way. Dean finds this out in a hospital cafeteria when waiting for Sam to wake.


**Fandom** _Supernatural_  
**Character(s)/Pairing(s)** Dean, Mary; no pairings  
**Genre** Family/Future!fic/Gen/Supernatural  
**Rating**  
**Word Count** 758  
**Disclaimer** Supernatural c. Kripke, WB, CW  
**Summary** Crowley always keeps his promises in his own way. Dean finds this out in a hospital cafeteria when waiting for Sam to wake.  
**Warning(s)** spoilers up through season six episode ten, spoiler for season six episode eleven promo  
**Notes** Just something rolling around in my head I needed to get out.

_**What One Can and Cannot Promise**_

Since Castiel told him Sam might never be the same upon reuniting with his tortured soul, Dean had nightmares. None of them was quite like this. Sam looked normal, but Sam was now in room 221 in a coma. His vitals were typically steady, but sometimes something inside of Sam would panic, crash, and set off multiple alarms. One such incident occurred only two hours ago, only an hour before visiting hours to the second floor ended. Dean now sat in the hospital's cafeteria on the last of his coffee. From where he sat he could see the cafeteria staff working behind the counter, helping other people who were stuck here overnight like Dean for various reasons. Dean tried calling Bobby again. The man had not picked up his phone for a week now. Dean meant to check in on him but everything happened so fast, then Sam had his soul back, and everything was so wrong with the world.

"You're staring."

Dean looked up and then realized the woman he watched clean the tables was standing right in front of him. She had long blonde hair in messy waves and exhausted gray eyes. "Ah…sorry." He shook his head. "It's been a long day." He looked away. There were some women out there that when he was a child he almost thought was his mother. This woman, however, she looked almost exactly like he remembered. Dean shifted a little in his seat.

"It's alright." She sat down across from him. "You're Sam's brother, aren't you?"

Dean's eyes averted to her face then. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

"Every night you call someone name Bobby and leave him a message about how 'Sammy' is doing. On the weekends, I clean room 221. You look like you could be that man's brother."

Dean snorted. He heard the words escape his mouth before he could reel them in. "At least you don't think we're lovers. Everyone else seems to."

The corners of the woman's mouth quirked slightly at that. "I bet that's frustrating."

"Sometimes." Dean looked down at her hands. They were chapped just as his mother's hands got in the winter. Around her ring finger was a simple yet tarnished gold band. "I don't know if you should be talking to me if your husband's waiting for you at home." He smirked slightly so hopefully she would not take things the wrong way.

"Oh." The woman turned the band around her finger. "We're…separated." She shook her head.

"Ah…well…" Dean was not sure what to say to that. He played with his empty coffee cup.

"Don't worry. I'm a strong woman." She reached out, put a hand on his, and squeezed. "When your brother wakes up – and you know he will – just try not to get in more trouble, okay?" Her eyes found his gaze. He watched her bottom lids raise up ever so slightly. She was very serious, just like his mom.

"Of – Of course." Dean almost looked away but could not quite bring himself to do so. "He's my brother."

She held his gaze as though he should know what she meant by "trouble" and she knew they would run right back to it once Sam was walking and talking again.

"Campbell, I need you cleaning up, not flirting," a husky man said from over by the trashcans. "Just give him your number and meet him on your own time."

"That's my boss." She leaned down and pressed her lips to Dean's forehead briefly. "Good luck, Dean." Then she hooked up the trashcans to each other and started pushing them out to the dumpster in the back.

Dean sat there a long moment and then got to his feet, abandoning the cup. Yet, when he got to the hallway Mary disappeared down, she was nowhere visible. When he got to the trash dumpster outside, the cans were empty and a pockmarked man had them to bring back inside the building.

"Did you see where," Dean tripped over the name slightly, "Mary went?" He tried not to sound like a creeper.

"The blonde chick?" The pockmarked man looked over his shoulder. "She just caught her bus home. I told her I'd bring these in since it's the last bus of the night."

Dean looked out across the parking lot. He could see the city bus already turning a corner and heading out on the main road. He took a deep breath and went back inside the hospital. She worked here, so he figured she would show up again.

**The End**


End file.
